The results from this project will be compared with the results from the STAND project, which uses a parallel study design in African Americans. The contrast between African Americans and Hispanics is of particular interest because these groups share similar pre-disposition to obesity, greater insulin resistance and risk for type 2 diabetes, but for the major types of cancer, African Americans have substantially greater risk than Hispanics.

The design of this cross-sectional study includes a 16-week intervention in which obese adolescents are randomized to 3 groups: control, nutrition education, or nutrition education plus supervised strength training. Biological data will be collected from fasting blood samples, oral glucose tolerance tests, and intravenous glucose tolerance tests; body composition will be assessed by DEXA and Bod Pod; fat distribution in the stomach area will be assessed by MRI; and additional measures will be examined using 24-hour dietary recalls and questionnaire data.